[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hampstead Borough].

  • Hampstead (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hampstead Borough]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/69 (page 4)
    4 The aim of the public health service is twofold. First to try and ensure that there is a healthy environment in which people can live and work and secondly, to try and persuade the public to live in a healthy way„ As a very simple example, a room should have a proper window to provide light and ventilation, but the occupier must also be persuaded not to cover it so much as to exclude the light nor to keep it permanently closed to prevent proper ventilation. A great deal has already been done to provide a good environment and although there is no reason for complacency or satisfaction there are powers under the various Acts of Parliament dealing with Housing, Factories and Public Health to provide and maintain at least a minimum standard. It is not possible to foresee the time when these powers will be unnecessary. Houses get old and worn and need repair; other houses are inhabitated in a way which was not intended when they were built and they require alteration or improvement; manufacturing processes and techniques may bring new risks which must be guarded against. Nevertheless Hampstead is fortunate in having an establishment of public health inspectors who have great experience and ability in this work and the decreasing number of complaints of unsatisfactory conditions is a measure of their success. Persuading the members of the public to live in a healthy manner is a much more difficult matter. It is usual to speak of it today as Health Education, almost as if this were something new whereas in its wider sense it started with the beginnings of civilisation. Health education in Hampstead has always been a function of the Public Health Department but it is by no means a prerogative. A great deal of work is done by the London County Council, by doctors and nurses, school teachers, the press, societies, clubs and associations and by the public themselves. Health education like most of medicine is composed of a little special knowledge and a great deal of commonsense. It must be based on the fact that the population is very largely composed of sensible people who, if given the necessary information, will act sensibly. To reach the whole public is, however, an enormous task. Posters and leaflets have their uses but only some people consciously notice them and very few are influenced by